Saturday, July 28, 2012

COLLECTING STUDENT WORK {Teacher Tip #16}

Classroom 360 is a complete tour of my classroom as designed for the 2012-2013 school year. Each post highlights an aspect of my room with photos, a detailed explanation of it's purpose, and often times videos.

This post is a Classroom 360, Teacher Tip and Flash Freebie all in one.

Talk about getting the most bang for your buck.

I didn't plan it that way, but when I was writing it up I realized I needed to tag it as both.

So without further ado I present to you my new and improved student work bins.

I actually used to just have one dishpan for collecting all student work. It sort of worked for me.

Sort of.

It wasn't all bad, but it did take some work to sort through the assignments because my friends finished work at different rates. I typically had kids sort it as an odd job when time allowed, BUT in the event that I wanted to correct something and my little worker bees were not around, it added extra time to the task.

And we all know how crucial every moment is in our teacher lives.

So this year I decided to have designated spots for each subject area. This will be the one central area that all completed assignments get turned in. Because students will know this is the procedure in our classroom, they will be able to quickly turn in their work and move onto the next activity and not waste time standing around waiting to ask, "What do I do with this now that I'm done?"

In the past, I had made labels, laminated them and taped/glued/tied/hot glued them onto the bin.

And every.single.time the label managed to fall off.

Well, first it would fade and THEN it would fall off, but the end result was always the same.

It is for that reason that I decided to skip the lamination and get my Modge Podge on. You're actually going to be reading quite a few posts about my love of Modge Podge in the next couple of weeks. Consider yourself warned...and now go out and buy yourself a big ole jug of it (and a bunch of those cheapo foam brushes because they are the BEST for applying the MP).

I decided to use a different color bucket for each subject area. I plan to coordinate folders and whatnot to those colors as well.

I also made the executive decision to go with an ELA bucket as opposed to a reading bucket, a word study bucket, and a writing bucket. And since I alternate teaching a social studies unit and a science unit, I went and got all genius on myself by putting those two labels on opposite sides of the same bucket. I'll just rotate it around to reflect which subject we teach.

Because I wanted to use different color buckets AND because I wanted them to match my room, I decided to spray paint some dishpans I already had. This proved to be a great idea as I was able to then use the paint for some additional projects (which I'll be sharing soon).

I love the idea of sorting student work by subject area. I've always wondered if I collect and correct more student work than others, if my students do more written work than others, or if I'm just super-slow (disorganized) at correcting it. I always feel trapped under a pile of papers to correct! I am definitely borrowing your idea of sorting!!! Thank you for sharing!Shining and Sparkling in First Grade

Wondering....did you clean off the excess MP when the labels were dry or did it just not show all over the front of the container. Also..... painting to reused all of the matchy stuff from my last color theme will definately save money...can't stand not having my containers matchy matchy!!

Great idea. Since I don't have alot of space in my classroom, I use plastic folders for each subject. They are placed in a designated area. When my fifth graders are done, they find the correct folder and put their completed work. It helps me to manage correcting papers. This year I am going to add a class list to the front so they can check off that they completed and turned it in. This past year I had to hunt down a few.

Great idea. Since I don't have alot of space in my classroom, I use plastic folders for each subject. They are placed in a designated area. When my fifth graders are done, they find the correct folder and put their completed work. It helps me to manage correcting papers. This year I am going to add a class list to the front so they can check off that they completed and turned it in. This past year I had to hunt down a few.

Great idea. Since I don't have alot of space in my classroom, I use plastic folders for each subject. They are placed in a designated area. When my fifth graders are done, they find the correct folder and put their completed work. It helps me to manage correcting papers. This year I am going to add a class list to the front so they can check off that they completed and turned it in. This past year I had to hunt down a few.

I've used Sterilite 3-drawer organizers for years to collect student work, with one drawer for each subject. It works well, as I can pull all the work out at once and check it, or pull one activity at a time. It saves a lot of space since it's all stacked in one tower on a shelf by my desk.

The modge podge is such a great idea--I never thought about that before...now my labels won't fall off or get ruined! Check out Walmart for inexpensive bins as well (they have colored clear ones such as pink or blue). Thanks for the great ideas!

I LOVE this idea!! I am waiting on my spray paint to dry now...the hardest part. I didn't see the assessment label. Would you be willing to share it?? Thanks in advance!! I can't wait to see them in my classroom.

I have those same bins from the Dollar Store from last year which I originally bought for organizing science supplies for table groups for quick passing out of stuff but I found later in the year I wasn't using them as much for that. I've been thinking about a way to organize all the piles of paper that come in for current units in some shelves I have near my desk and this would be perfect for that! (Especially since I already have the bins.) Thanks for the idea :)